Disclosure checks and flying instructors.

[Say again s l o w l y]

Sorry mate but I cannot see how a disclosure form would help in that situation.
Just because we have to reach across someone from time to time, that is totally in line with normal aviation practice. I don't think that there would be any sort of case to answer, because it is how you are supposed to operate the machine. I'm PIC, therefore it is my responsibility to ensure that the flight is conducted as prescribed in the POH.

At the end of the day, as an a/c captain, you are entitled to do what you need to do to make sure the a/c is safe. If that means throwing a passenger out of a window or reaching across and brushing someones leg, then so be it. As long as it is a necessary action.

[Blackshift]

Sorry mate but I cannot see how a disclosure form would help in that situation

No need to apologise, never said it would....

A disclosure form doesn't seem to actually offer much in the way of protection, except for the club itself.

...your words not mine - so protect the club.

...and protect yourself while you are at it - if something like this occured on your patch, and moreover it turned out that the instructor concerned was in fact a previously convicted sex offender, three guesses who would be next in the firing line for allowing him to be placed in a position of care with a minor?

If your scenario of brushing past some 14 year old was going to end up in court, the Police could stand on Oxford Street and catch thousands every day who brush past each other.

The difference is that you are alone in an enclosed environment with a youth in your care who can easily claim to perceive physical contact as being gratuitous, rightly or wrongly.

Its a bit like the hackneyed example of the driving instructor placing his hand on the students hand to help them change gear.

At the end of the day, as an a/c captain, you are entitled to do what you need to do to make sure the a/c is safe... As long as it is a necessary action.

Bear in mind that we are talking about an instructional flight with someone presumably deemed suitable to be the recipient of flight instruction, and therefore presumably capable of operating a fuel selector lever if properly briefed on how to do so.

Therefore why should it be "necessary" for you to perform this action instead of the student, who is after all recognised in law as part of the operating crew of the aircraft?

Perhaps you consider that the "student", is in fact unable to properly perform any such a function, even under your own supervision, and perhaps should more properly be considered to be a "passenger" and therefore subjected to the regulations concerning carriage of passengers, which would of course require an AOC for a revenue flight in this case?

Whereas I fully agree that such complaints are more than likely to be total bo**ox, they could could all too easily lead to a nightmarishly Kafka-esque assault from some lawyer who makes his living from this kind of thing...

Exept perhaps for the purposes of an initial demonstration,which would in any case be more appropriately part of a pre-flight briefing, I put it to you Mr ****** that it was in fact NOT necessary for you to repeatedly perform this action instead of allowing your student the opportunity to do so!

A close family member who has worked in child and youth care for many years has told me a few horror stories of this ilk which are barely believable!

The point about such incidents is that even if you are officialy cleared of any misconduct, your reputation can easily be tarnished nevertheless - "no smoke without fire" etc...

If you chose to ignore or rubbish my own methods of limiting the possibility of such an incident ever occuring, then fair enough - that's up to you.

However, you have been warned.

I'll tell you what - you fly with the 14 year old girl on her own, and I'll take the 45 year old accountant, if that's alright with you chaps?

So now everyone's happy.... aren't they?

[A and C]

It is a sad reflection of the state of things that leads me to take a lot of what Blackshift has to say very seriosly. The "PC" do gooders and the press are so quick to come down on the police on these issues that the police have to act on the slightest evidence.

A young man I know was arrested on a rape charge taken to the police station and forced to strip , left in the cells for 8 hours in only a paper overall on and then released without charge after the police had proved that he was not within 10 miles of the girl who accused him of rape.

The police officers who had carried out the investigation wanted to charge the girl with waisting police time but this was stopped by a higher authority , the reason given was that prosicution of the girl would " send out the wrong message".

To all of you who work with minors I have to say the be very carefull because it only takes one screwed up kid and a slow news day to ruin the rest of your life.

[DFC]

Blackshift,

You do what makes you feel happy.

However don't cry when the following happens;

You ask 14 year old girl to change tanks.

14 year old girl promptly turns off fuel.

You either force land the aircraft or reach across in no small amount of haste and turn it back on (brushing on various parts in your haste).

The flustered and frightened girl promptly tells dad about you letting her turn off the fuel and then having your hands all over her while you fumbled round geting it back on again while the aircraft nose dived towards the ground.

I put it to you sir - based on the several cases of professional experienced pilots having difficulty with fuel selectors did you not place the student in a position where you would have a good excuse to take advantage of an inexperienced and frightened young girl.

If you have nothing to worry about then why worry. If you think that disclosure will prevent accusations then you are wrong.

Again I say that you must hold shares in one of the disclosure companies to be this in favour of something that a) is not required and b) gives nothing for the money spent.

What you are saying is that every club owned and operated by the CFI will have to close because the CFI (who may fly with such students from time to time) can not do a disclosure on themselves!

Your only answer is as you say - don't fly with minors. The money you loose will be easily offset by the savings in disclosure checks costs.

Finally - you get a disclosure check on an instructor of yours today and it comes back NTR. Next week they could appear in court and be convicted of child abuse. Disclosure only tells you history.

Regards,

DFC

[Blackshift]

Any pilot who gets into such a pickle whilst operating the fuel selector will most likely do so by being distracted whilst flying the aeroplane, and insufficient practice in operating this control during his training on the type may well be a contributory factor in this.

I will only ask the student to operate the fuel selector during some part of the flight where I can pay close attention to what they are doing. Hoping for the best and expecting the worst I am of course ready to intervene immediately if they get it wrong - in which case such an action is indeed necessary to protect the safety of the a/c. The same could obviously be said to apply to the commander electing to operate the fuel selector when flying with an inexperienced crew member at low level, in IMC, or in an emergency.

Morever if the student has little or no previous experience of performing this action in an a/c such as the PA28, I make sure that they are not performing another function at the same time, ie trying to fly the a/c straight and level or whatever. This applies whether it is an ab-initio student or a pilot converting to the type.

I see no reason for not permitting them to do this under my supervision, after being properly briefed, on their first flight in the aircraft - and every reason for them to get accustomed to the process with as much practice as possible: with nothing else to worry about changing tanks can be the easiest thing for them to achieve with 100% success in the knowledge that they are carrying out an important task.

It may well present more of a challenge to a qualified pilot juggling priorities in a high workload environment.

A further advantage in terms of health and safety considerations is that it is physically easier for them to perform this task and I am therefore at less risk pulling a muscle or putting my back out - especially in the event of anything more than even slightly bumpy flight conditions. The lever was clearly not designed to be operated from the RHS.

Quite frankly I think that your objections are spurious - the logical conclusion would be that only the a/c commander would perform this function until the student was judged to be a bit more advanced, and therefore students and inexperienced PPL's would have less reinforced training in this respect when they eventually flew a PA28 solo. I'd rather they make a mistake with the fuel selector when sitting next to me than later when I send them off to fly on their own.

Respecting the personal space of a young person, someone of a different gender, or anyone else who may appreciate such a courtesy and be more comfortable as a result, is therefore really just one of many good reasons for this practice - it is also a matter of respecting their capability and intelligence by requesting them to assist in the safe operation of the aircraft.

If you have nothing to worry about then why worry. If you think that disclosure will prevent accusations then you are wrong.

In reply to the first question (Not sure that I really appreciate your choice of words here though!), I can't improve on A and C's conclusion...

To all of you who work with minors I have to say the be very carefull because it only takes one screwed up kid and a slow news day to ruin the rest of your life.

...whether or not you chose to be concerned about this is up to you - I make no apologies for chosing to do so.

As for disclosure, I am not even suggesting that it can in any way prevent such allegations, except in the event of them being directed towards someone with a previous offence - on the contrary, I have given both real and hypothetical examples of how easily such allegations can be created out of what most right-minded people would hopefully consider to be entirely innocuous circumstances.

However, if I was responsible for the provision any person to to take on a duty of care for a minor in an otherwise unsupervised environment, I would want to make sure that I was legally entitled to nominate them to do so.

Would you suggest otherwise?

[mad_jock]

Personally I don't see the disclosure being any real benift to the instructor themselves.

Its purely an arse covering exercise for those above them. ie if there is an incident it covers the flying school from being sued by the parent or kid. Because lets face it the flying instructor isnt going to be worth suing. But the school with its 4 aircraft at 20k each and 400 hours of trial flights sitting in the bank is.

Now how you operate the aircraft as an instructor to avoid confusion of motives is the instructors problem. The individual methods of instructors to get round this is worth talking about.

Which proberly why I prefered overall teaching in a PA38.

All the controls are easily got at from the RHS during all phases of flight with out having to invade the personal space of the LHS. Apart from if they have a huge fat arse and it covers the trim wheel.

The problem i found with the C15x training aircraft was my shoulders were to big. So to give the student more room i sat with my arm behined my seat. I always had the same brief if it was male, female, old or young. I would tell them my arm was going there and the reason why. And that i wasn't trying to put my arm round them. Usually from the women I was asked why I didn't want to put my arm round them. And once which really put the wind up me by a bloke.

Maybe a briefing book for all students giving the position of controls and possible times the instructor would have to go for them would help. If you where to brief everything that could happen you would never get into the air.

In my experence all physical contact has been instigated by the student ie grabbing arms/ hands on legs when you first show them steep turns, stalls etc. Trial flights taking jumpers off, ending up with t-shirts coming with it which then get caught on broken trim. Which I might add I ended up with one lady who appeared posh saying "f*** it you have seen them now" and spent the next 40mins flying in her bra. It really broke the ice with her and we had a whale of a time. I don't think her husband was to happy though when he met the plane. Which was a pity because i reckon she would have gone for a PPL course, she definatly had the knack and would have been great fun to teach.

And the most memorable was the 3 very attractive law graduates and taking pics of thier breasts while doing neg G bunts. And please lets not go down the airmanship flaws of performing neg G bunts while trying to take pics of 3 girls breasts. It took alot of doing BTW and quite a few attempts.

MJ

[Say again s l o w l y]

Where did you teach M_J! I want a job there. All I seem to get is middle aged fat bald men with halitosis...........

[Blackshift]

Not exactly what I was thinking of when I talked about "juggling priorities in a high workload environment", but hey - all part of life's rich tapestry!

You should try driving a taxi at the weekends.

Of course, this does requires periodical background checks by the police - which means a taxi controller doesn't have to fret about sending a driver to pick up a teenager from a school disco, or taking a vulnerable, trusting child with learning difficulties from a youth club to a childrens home, or whatever.

Hope your students are thick-skinned Sas, unless of course you were also referring to your instructors.

[DFC]

Protection of Children Act 1999


Where a child care organisation proposes to offer an individual employment in a child care position, the organisation-

(a) shall ascertain whether the individual is included in the list kept under section 1 above, or the list kept for the purposes of regulations made under section 218(6) of the 1988 Act; and
(b) if he is included in either list, shall not offer him employment in such a position.



"child care organisation" means an organisation-
(a) which is concerned with the provision of accommodation, social services or health care services to children or the supervision of children;
(b) whose activities are regulated by or by virtue of any prescribed enactment; and
(c) which fulfils such other conditions as may be prescribed;

"child care position" means a position which-
(a) is concerned with the provision of accommodation, social services or health care services to children or the supervision of children;
(b) is such as to enable the holder to have regular contact with children in the course of his duties; and
(c) is not a position within subsection (3) below;

My emphasis.

The above is the UK legislation for the requirements to have certain lists of individuals and giving the cases where employers are required to have individuals checked against the lists.

I have emphasised above the fact that the person must be in a child care or child supervision position that requires regular contact with Children.

Being a Teacher, a Children's Home care assistant, a Scout Leader are positions that involve care for, supervision and regular contact with children.

Being a flight instructor in general would not put one in regular contact with children.

Note that there is nothing in the ACT that proposes more stringent checks for people who have unsupervised contact with children - unsupervised or supervised makes no difference - it is the regular contact that decides.

Thus, there is nothing in legislation which requires an RTF or FTO to check employees agains the relevant lists.

That means two things to the average FTO/RTF:-

a) This is a load of scaremongering; and more importantly;

b) If you offer a position to an individual, you can not make it conditional on disclosure against those lists nor can you require current employees to undergo a check against those lists either because they are not in a child care position and there is no legislation that requires such a check.

Of course individuals can volunteer for a check but since the flight instructor position is not one of the prescribed positions, one would be in a bit of a pickle if an instructor was found to be on a list - one could not sack them - one could not (morally or otherwise) send them off with a child.

If we all worried like Blackshift, we would never sit next to a child on a Bus or on a Train.

Regards,

DFC

[Blackshift]

Yeah right....

Hoots of derisive guffaws all round from your facetious extrapolation of my thoughts!

A bus or a train are a public place, just like Oxford St in DFC's similarly cack-handed conclusion.

It would obviously be ridiculous and unnecessary paranoia to studiously avoid proximity to minors in such situations - that would be strange behaviour.

However, if there was no one else on the bus, or in the railway-carriage, you probably wouldn't sit next to a child who was not known to you - that would be strange behaviour.

Apologies for boring anyone who has actually paid attention to the discussion so far for repeating this - but I am referring to matters which result from a child being alone in a confined space, except for an adult unknown to them in close physical proximity, to whom they have been entrusted, and from which they have no immediate means of exit for reasonable period of time in the event that they consider that the adult is behaving strangely towards them.

It is in fact the very difference between these environments, combined with the arguably disproportionate emphasis on the detection of "stranger danger" which can often be the default-setting in the minds of children towards adults who are not known to them, especially in the context of the more universal fear of the unknown which many can exhibit when flying for the first time, which creates the potential for a problem here.

Although this is the scenario set for the previously example of wrongly perceived gratuitious physical contact, similar problems could easily arise in much more mundane situations where something said or done, whether real or imagined, that is in any way thought to result in unwarranted discomfort or harm to a child:-

A half hour flight with a 10 year old boy results in him being sick whilst rejoining to land, he gets about half of it into the sick-bag and the rest redecorates the cockpit. The parents (who would not be capable of bringing up a dog without risk of prosecution from the RSPCA) are mortified, and in order to avoid being chastised by them on the way home the child protests vigorously that he complained about illness shortly after take off and his request to return was denied by the pilot - kids will sometimes say just about anything to avoid getting into trouble with their parents. The car comes screetching back to the club car park and the father gets out to "give Biggles a piece of his mind!" - little Jonnie knows better than to go back on his story now. The instructor is publicly backed up by the CFI, with whom he has had differences in the past, but privately not permitted to fly with children again, his halo is irrevocably tarnished amongst those in the know - "He's always been a bit strange that one - did you hear about the time... I wouldn't give him a job".

It is fair to say that any of these things could also occur with an adult in the cockpit. However whereas I am prepared to risk a "your-word-against-mine" confrontation with an adult who would make such false claims, such a situation with a child would result in a much more highly charged, emotive situation, from which it could be much more difficult to extricate oneself with any dignity intact, and go on to lead a normal life as before.

Far from being "worried" about such matters, I am reasonably content that I have given a sufficient degree of consideration to a personal strategy for avoiding such problems arising with regard to children - just as I would with regard to any other conceivable set of circumstances where I might consider my reputation, career or personal wellbeing could be put unduly at risk.

Little Jonnie simply wouldn't be flying with me unless accompanied by another adult.

The chap in my real-life example unfortunately learned too late just how easily life can take an unexpected crap on you in a not entirely unrelated context. He probably thought it would be churlish, priggish and/or paranoid not to use his van to help the young lady in question to move home in response to her request.

No doubt some of his drinking buddies would say so if he were to ask their advice about such a dilemma, slapping him on the back and shouting "give her one from me!" as they send him on his way with manly sarcastic irony intended to re-charge him with a much-needed sense of proportion about life as they laugh him out of the pub.

One would hope they are not fair-weather friends.

Please note that this is a seperate, though obviously not entirely unrelated issue, to that of disclosure - as many have pointed out this is largely "someone else's problem", and you may be congratulated on being the first to unearth apparent legal proof of that (which presumably may also extend to the law in Scotland).

Someone out there may well sleep more soundly in their bed tonight.

Far from being an easy target for your bloke-ish gibes, if you take the effort to read and comprehend what I have said, you will find me to be a mirror to your derision.

Reflect on that.

[DFC]

However, if there was no one else on the bus, or in the railway-carriage, you probably wouldn't sit next to a child who was not known to you - that would be strange behaviour.


Strange behaviour? What a sad world.

Where I live, that would be considdered friendly unless the other person (Adult or Child) declined your offer of company and friendly conversation on the journey.

Strange indeed! - more like Paranoia.

Regards,

DFC

[Blackshift]

In fairness I suppose that depends on exactly what is meant by sitting "next" to them.

Sorry if my definition wasn't tight enough here - but its really a bit of a weak objection with regard to the bigger picture I would have thought.

However, I'll be a bit more specific bit for you....

Being seated in sufficient proximity to engage in conversation, should it be felt appropriate (as it apparently is by default where you come from) is different from imposing yourself uneccesarily on anothers personal space - ie sitting right next to them on the same bench, which is what I meant when I said you normally wouldn't do so in an otherwise empty carriage. To me this would simply be strange behaviour - unless I knew the person.

I might seat myself diagonally opposite or something like that in an otherwise empty carriage in a train I suppose, in order to be friendly but not intrusive, but sometimes I might not even bother to do that - no two situations are the same. Anyone who has lived in many of the widely varying regions of the country will recognise the strange but undeniable phonomenon that any rules of social ettiquette which could apply to such a situation are in any case very fluid and change according to whether you are in a conurbation or in the sticks, north or south etc.

In the village where I grew up it is polite to say hello to anyone who passes. In the town where I live a friendly smile or nod would be considered more than enough. In the city where I work people ignore each other, and anyone who is not known to you would look at you as if you were mad if you smiled, nodded or said hello to them in the street.

Getting back to the train, as you rightly point out, the same would broadly apply to the way you treat adults or children, although I'm not sure I would say so in such absolute terms - I probably treat children with kid gloves in comparison, thereby respecting the fact that they are children. I'd afford them the priviledge of deciding whether to initiate a conversation for example, otherwise I'd leave them in peace.

If they did so in a rude or annoying fashion, I'd indicate to them that I'd rather be left in peace, ignore them, or possibly move elsewhere if that didn't work, much as I would with an adult.

Whereas I might consider it appropriate that I should introduce myself to an Air Cadet in the uniform of my old squadron, I think that this would probably not be the case with regard to a young lady in a school uniform.

Striking up a conversation with someone who happens to be seated right next to you on a crowded train is of course an entirely different matter.

Accusations of paranoia are a bit OTT in this context BTW - what about modesty, shyness, recognising body language like crossed arms and looking out the window, not particularly liking the look of someone, respecting anothers privacy, wanting some time alone while you have the opportunity, just not being in the right mood etc,etc...

Have you never reluctantly and yet politely acceded to the company of a fellow traveller who foisted himself upon you and wished to God you hadn't?

Do you ever consider that you might have unwittingly done the same to another?

Could that have been a child?

And if any of this makes it a sad world - don't blame me!

[mad_jock]

I think both of you have good points.

But unfortunatly in the UK its all got a bit strange and you have to cover your arse. As has been said it can screw you for the rest of your life. And unfortunatly it doesn't follow the usual rules of innocent until provided guilty or even if innocent its forgotten about. Guys have been killed by locals when they have been accused by a kid with other motives.

And like Blackshift I avoid the situations which could open up possible problems later.

Managed once to totally insult a priest by refusing to leave a kid with him, which was given to me by his mum to look after at a christening. He made a huge fuss about it. But i wasn't going to let anything happen on my watch. Afterwards away from the crowds quite a few other mothers approached me and said I was quite right not to trust anyone.

Its a shame though you can't be yourself with kids any more. All it takes is for someone to report anything and your name is mud for the rest of your life.

Mind you all of this doesn't change even if you have got a disclosure. Its only there to cover the arse of the school, so if anything does happen the school can say that it has done everything in its power to protect its customers.

I suppose it all comes down to cost. If it doesn't cost anything to become a registered body go for it and get each instructor checked out you can use the disclosure to get their airside pass as well. Stick it in the advertising of the school and you might get some more business out of it. If your really lucky you will be knocked back when you apply to become a reg body. Then your back is again covered.

MJ

[DFC]

MJ,

What would you do if one of your instructors refused to complete the disclosure?

Remember that even if you are a registered body, you still do not have the legal right to require an employee to answer such questions unless their position is one described under the Protection of Children Act.

Thus what are you going to do with the instructor who refuses to fill in the form?

- Sack them? - They would have a field day at Tribunal

-Refuse them work - Again they could claim discrimination etc etc

-Let them fly with Children - What if they tried to cover something up?

If you say - Hey my instructors are self employed I can hire and fire as I like, remember that if they are not employed by you you can not ask them to complete the check!

The reason why the disclosure does not work simply for flight instructors or bus drivers or taxi drivers is that it is not designed for them - they are not required to have it.

Regards,

DFC

[mad_jock]

Before we start i have never been in the hire em fire em in a school only the Unrestricted poor bastard who is in charge of 6 instructors all restricted.

And I am very very very against any full time FI being self employed or for that matter part time as well unless they want to remain self employed.

Basically as you say as the employer you are fecked with current employees. The ones joining you can make it a requirment of employment. The refusing them work isn't a problem if they are employed through the books. They get told what they are going to do and thats it. And I would think in the current climate in the UK a moan that they are loosing out because they refuse to opt in on a child safety program would not carry much weight. In fact in scottish courts i wouldn't be suprised if they didn't get well shafted for wasting court time.

The best way for is to apply for it as a registered body and if they knock you back you are in the clear. I suspect they won't though because the whole thing is an arse covering exercise. If they refuse they are opening themselves up to legal problems so the safe option is for them to say yes.

And you are wrong some bus drivers and most taxi drivers all have to go through checks. All the local bus companys and all the drivers go through the checks because of school contracts and all taxi firms require the check which is included in the police check for their license. Again for any taxi firm to have a council contract them must have all self employed drivers with a full check before they send them on the job.

Its arse covering.

And the excuse that you don't employ the person carrys not even a ball hair of a excuse when it comes to liablity. If you are the front that someone buys a service off. Its your job to ensure that whoever the third party service provider is compliant to all the statue requirments. This has been provide time and time again in the oil industry when people have been killed and Shell, BP and the like have been done by the HSE for failing to enforce safety rules. To the point now that if you don't have your hand on the rail when walking up a set of stairs you will be thrown off site. So it doesn't matter if they are self employed, employed or any other method of fiddling the books you sold the lesson so you are liable for the instructors conduct.

[Blackshift]

DFC,

Wot - no sarky reply?

Was looking forward to a bit of sport this morning.....

The only decent point you have made so far has been the legal one - and this is pretty much a Pyrrhic victory, cos apart from FTO operators who want to avoid the hassle or expense involved, some of those who stand to benefit from this could well be a few of the unsavoury characters who create such problems in the first place, and amongst those who lose out are any kids who may not have the opportunity give them a bodyswerve.

Too much "head in the sand" stuff from FI's about these issues in general, and the protectionist line that "its my fuel selector and I want to play with it and you cant stop me cos I'm the boss" is quite frankly a bit dissapointing from an instructor.

If there's any question that you might be flying with children and you don't give these issues some serious consideration in advance - irrespective of any legal technicalities of disclosure, then you're really not paying enough attention to your own best interests, just as surely as if you have not given sufficient attention to a pre-flight check.

Just don't ask them if they like movies about Gladiators...

... and I hope the advice in my last post helps you to avoid a black-eye, handcuffs or worse should you ever take a bus or train beyond the confines of Chigley, Trumpton, or Camberwick Green.

I think my work is done here - so you'll no doubt be glad to hear that I've said all I'm going to say in this thread.